It’s a moment of epiphany in Afghanistan. The realisation has dawned that Pakistan cannot be trusted to bring peace — a fact that the Afghan people knew all along but which was swept under the carpet by the Afghan government in the hope of coaxing Islamabad to rein in the Taliban for a negotiated settlement.
Afghanistan is no stranger to terrorist violence. However, the past few weeks have witnessed calamity after calamity of suicide bombings and explosions in the heavily fortified capital city of Kabul and in different provinces. The intensity and impact of these attacks, carried out by the Pakistan-sponsored Taliban, have shaken the nation and laid the basis for a major change in policy response.
So devastating is the shock of the jihadist attacks that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has for the first time since assuming office unequivocally lambasted Pakistan for ravaging his country and leaving his people “bleeding in a war that is exported from outside”. Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai had also attempted reconciliation with the Taliban by adopting a friendly stance towards their Pakistani sponsors in his early years in office. But he was forced to recoil as Islamabad ratcheted up the Taliban’s violence as a bargaining chip. By the end of his tenure, Mr Karzai had nothing but utter disgust for Pakistan’s role as the bank-roller, safe haven and benefactor of the Taliban.
After trying a similar initial strategy of regional cooperation with Pakistan, Mr Ghani is now experiencing a painful redux of Mr Karzai’s learning curve. Why did history have to repeat itself all over instead of scripting a new chapter of a liberal approach to Afghan policy in Islamabad? The reason is the complete enfeeblement of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif by an assertive military establishment.
President Ghani is well aware that the Pakistani Army is almighty and has gone to the extent of personally visiting General Raheel Sharif in Rawalpindi prior to meeting the civilian Prime Minister. But the desired outcome of such out-of-the-box diplomatic initiatives is in tatters as the Pakistani military is walking all over the elected Prime Minister and is more possessively seeking to control the Taliban during its testing leadership transition phase.
Ever since Afghan intelligence publicly announ-ced the death in the Pakistani city of Karachi of the reclusive Taliban supremo Mullah Omar, an internal succession feud has broken out between at least two factions. Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, who was hastily appointed as Mullah Omar’s successor by a council meeting in Pakistan, is pitted against Mullah Omar’s son and brother. Commanders faithful to the dissenters have vowed to “go after those Taliban who have lost their way and accepted this puppet as the new leader”, adding for effect that Mr Mansoor is a “stooge of Pakistan”.
The same Pakistan-based Taliban council which anointed Mr Mansoor as the new chief also raised hackles by naming Sirajuddin Haqqani as the deputy chief. The elevation of one of the Haqqanis, who have been responsible for countless terrorists attacks against Indian and Western interests in Afghanistan, leaves none in doubt that the ISI is four-square behind the new Taliban leadership reshuffle, thereby setting up a split with Taliban commanders opposed to direct Pakistani manipulation.
Unabated attacks in Kabul and hitherto relatively safer northern provinces of Afghanistan are the by-products of this centrifugal tendency within the Taliban, with pro- or anti-Pakistan loyalties being the main axis of infighting. Mr Mansoor’s Pakistan-guided jihadists are on a bloody killing spree to prove that their new emir, who has vowed to “carry on jihad until we establish the Islamic state”, overshadows rival warlords and pretenders to the crown.
The post-Mullah Omar dispensation is especially risky for Afghanistan because when rebel groups break up into multiple gangs, the government has no single counterpart to talk to and splinter groups keep fighting even if one section wants a political solution. Still, disgruntled anti-Pakistan or anti-Mansoor cliques within the Taliban could be useful for the Afghan government and its regional allies to ultimately weaken the insurgency and reduce Pakistan’s nefarious int-erference in Afghanistan. In protracted wars like those in Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland, splintering of the LTTE and the Irish Republican Army eventually caused their downfalls.
The savagery of the Taliban’s ongoing terrorism in Afghanistan suggests that they are fragmented and reacting in the only language their masters in the ISI know — violence. The intended message of the escalated mayhem is that the Taliban sections under Mr Mansoor are far from vanquished and instead prefer to dictate terms.
Fissures in the Taliban are likely to make their different strands more bloodthirsty in the short run. But in the long run, through regional cooperation with countries that have lost countless people to the poison of Islamist extremism, President Ghani can divide and prevail over the enemies of Afghanistan and of humanity.
The writer is a professor and dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs
